At Nashville Software School, we provide our students and graduates who are still on the search for their first job in tech with opportunities to dive deeper and continue their education while on the job hunt. These graduates are referred to as Seekers.
While searching for their first job after graduation, we encourage our Seekers to find ways to differentiate themselves from their fellow classmates. During their bootcamp, our career development team helps students identify how to leverage their prior experience during their job search. It serves as their first differentiator, but adding another technical skill can also be a valuable differentiator. Recently Wayne Collier, a graduate of Part-time Web Development Cohort E8, spoke with our Seekers about why they should consider learning Salesforce development.
Salesforce is a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system, but in Wayne Collier’s experience, it can be molded into whatever the business needs it to be. Most companies use Salesforce to track their sales pipeline, from prospect interest to final sale, but you can also use it as a database and build applications on top of it.
At its core, Salesforce is a database that houses your objects and you can use your full-stack skills inside of it. Where a full-stack developer would use HTML, in Salesforce you use VisualForce pages. Where one would use Python or .NET for the back-end, you use Apex. Apex and Visualforce Pages use the same logic and basic syntax as both HTML and C#, so what you learned in a traditional full-stack path will translate over to Salesforce.
There are many paths you can take in software development after NSS, so why should you consider learning Salesforce? “In my experience, [Salesforce has] been valuable on top of just being a full-stack developer,” shares Wayne. If you search for “Salesforce developer” on LinkedIn, you’ll discover lots of well-paying, remote jobs. Sometimes, you can find a company that will train you on Salesforce development, but you can also learn the skills on your own and for free.
If you want an easier entry, a lot of people start off with Salesforce Administrator. It allows you to get a taste of Salesforce without going too deep and what you learn in the administrator track will help you with the Salesforce Developer track. If you’re ready to dive in, you can start with the Salesforce Developer track as it will backfill information that you need from the Administrator track. If you find it’s going too deep, too fast, try switching to the Administrator track.
In addition to learning the skills, you can also take Salesforce certifications through their Trailhead program. Salesforce’s training program is so robust that even if you don’t take the certification exams, you can reference your Trailhead badge status on your resume to give your learning some clout when applying to Salesforce administrator or developer jobs.
We love hands-on learning at NSS! Salesforce’s Trailhead program gives you a free Salesforce environment to work in as you’re going through the modules. “You get to go in there and create profiles, users, different permissions of what users can do, or see, or can't see. You can create a database here within your object manager. It's the full sandbox, if you will,” explains Wayne.
“I was hired on as a junior [and worked with] a senior developer and a mid-level developer. We were a startup. When we went through a little bit of financial hardship, they actually [laid off] the other 2 developers and asked me if I wanted to take on more responsibility and learn more on my own,” recalls Wayne. “I was like, yes, I need a job. I'm gonna definitely do whatever you want me to do. But they didn't have anybody to teach me. I went through all of these Trailheads and taught myself what I needed to learn to keep the business afloat. So it can be done on your own, in your own time even, and I'm a product of that.”
A common question our graduates have is how do you balance continued learning and the priorities of your job? Wayne shares, “I love this stuff! To be honest with you, I would do this stuff after work hours. And I think that’s why I have been as successful as I have, because I enjoy doing this. I have a 15 year old kid. [After the work day] I'll do things with him. I do jiu jitsu. I have a life. But then I'll come home and I'll be like, I wanna code this thing. I wanna learn this thing.” He describes it as his form of relaxing and challenging his mind, comparing it to doing a sudoku puzzle, a crossword puzzle or reading a book.
The payoff?
“After having the [Salesforce] certification, I will never make less than $90,000 a year,” Wayne exclaims. “And that’s a relief. But I had to put in all of that work to be able to get to that point too.”
Certifications, like Salesforce, show that you have the technical skills to do the job. An employer may look at your certification and your badge level and decide that they don’t need to spend a lot of time in the interview process talking about your technical skills. They may even skip a technical interview since you’ve proven your skills with your badge and certificate.
“There's a lot of people doing full-stack development,” says Wayne. “The way that I've always looked at it is the step that you just took with NSS legitimized you into the industry. They've opened up one door for you.”
“[Let’s say] you get hired and you start developing only in React. And then what happens when they let you go? All you've done is React for 3 years and you're scared to [move] to Angular or Vue. So what I want you to do is to look at Salesforce, not just for Salesforce purposes, but for [continued learning and skill diversification]. Open your mind and be open to anything. Don't be scared of the abstractions that you might have going into something else because I guarantee coming out of NSS you have all the tools to be able to make sense of all this other stuff.”
One way to approach your growth path on-the-job, is to notice what other developers are doing at the company. If they’re using AWS (or Azure, or Google Cloud) for their DevOps, ask how you can learn more about that technology. They’ll often point you towards a certification pathway. “Start grabbing those certifications. That starts legitimizing you a little bit more and a little bit more. It also keeps you relevant,” shares Wayne.
You always [need to] keep growing - even if you're doing it on your own.”
“You get out into this world and you're gonna [discover technologies] that you don't like. And you're going to [discover technologies that] you love. It's going to be up to you to start chasing those paths.”
With your full-stack skills and your “learning to learn” experience at NSS, learning Salesforce development presents a compelling career path. With companies across various sectors seeking skilled developers to customize and optimize their CRM systems and offering competitive salaries, Salesforce development may be a great differentiator for you.